Egypt reuses 23.2 bn cbm of water a year, and the networks to deliver it are nearing completion

Egypt reuses about 23.2 bn cbm of water a year, and its drainage treatment plants add nearly 4.8 bn cbm in treatment capacity, Irrigation and Water Resources Minister Hani Sewilam told foreign reporters last month in a briefing that set Egypt’s scarcity against Ethiopia’s water resources and dam. At the opening of Cairo Water Week on Sunday, he put it plainly: “Egypt has no choice but to reuse water on that scale to meet its needs.” (watch, runtime: 25:17)

The networks that carry that water are close to finished. Two weeks after the briefing, the ministry said Bahr El Baqar’s routes, meant to irrigate 270k feddans in Sinai, were about 91% complete.

After treatment, water flows to the Sheikh Gaber Canal and then through a system of routes and pumping stations to reclamation areas in North and Central Sinai, an Irrigation Ministry official tells EnterpriseAM. The plant releases none of it into the sea or lagoons, and its output counts as reused water even before the routes are finished, senior hydrogeologist and water and wastewater utilities strategist Ahmed Salah tells us. “This is already the case for now, and it will continue once everything is fully completed,” he adds.

At both Bahr El Baqar and El Hammam, the plants were completed before their conveyance networks. Bahr El Baqar opened in September 2021 with a capacity to treat 5.6 mn cbm / d as we’ve previously reported. Its routes to North and Central Sinai climbed from 9% in February 2022 to 32% by January 2023, then to 88% in April 2026, and reached about 91% two weeks after the September briefing.

El Hammam, which serves the New Delta project and can treat 7.5 mn cbm / d, was listed as complete in April 2024. Sewilam ordered the handover of pumping stations on the route bringing drainage water to the plant last March, starting with those that had passed testing, and called for tests on the rest to be finished, according to a statement released at the time. President Abdel Fattah El Sisi inaugurated the New Delta 11 weeks later.

How it adds up: In April 2024, the ministry put canal recycling at about 21 bn cbm a year, with the plants at El Mahsama, Bahr El Baqar, and El Hammam adding 4.8 bn for a total design capacity of about 26 bn cbm. Salah reads that 26 bn as the level reached once every project runs fully and stabilizes.

“The design capacity of the three projects exceeds 5 bn cbm a year, while the operating total is estimated at about 4.8 bn cbm a year,” the ministry official tells us. Actual use in any year depends on drain flows, the readiness of conveyance and irrigation networks, and the pace of reclaiming and operating target areas, the official adds — and the ministry has no official figures yet on the actual utilization rate of the plants’ design capacity.

Validating the figures takes site data: Companies and lenders use national reuse figures for context, SLR Consulting Egypt Country Manager Ahmed Zedan tells us. Those figures “would need to be validated by site-specific data,” he says, such as how much water enters a plant, its quality, and where it ends up.

Groundwater is part of the New Delta’s plan: “The New Delta system adds about 2.7 bn cbm a year,” the ministry official tells us. El Sisi said the project targets 2.2 mn feddans. Treated water can’t irrigate the project alone, Salah says, calling groundwater an integral part of the design, “not just a backup system.”

Saving water on farms means less drainage to treat: Sewilam told Parliament in January 2023 that moving farmers to modern irrigation cuts the drainage water available for reuse and raises soil salinity. Salah calls the trade-off “a usual paradox or gap between anticipation and a real framework,” adding that the government’s consultants can design these plants to “adapt to different scenarios.” When drains run low, the plants could draw on more saline water, though that raises concerns over energy costs, he says.

Why it matters: Treatment capacity only becomes usable water once the networks carry it to the fields. Bahr El Baqar’s routes to 270k feddans in Sinai are about 91% complete, and El Hammam’s conveyance stations have been in handover since March — the last step before the two plants’ 5.6 and 7.5 mn cbm / d reach the reclamation they feed, including the New Delta, where Salah says treated water works alongside groundwater toward a 2.2 mn feddan target.